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We will let Kenny Banh take it from here, via the Washington Post:“Banh said the worm was dead when he saw it but noted the man told him “it was alive when he pulled it out and it was wiggling in his hand.” Banh stretched it out on the ER floor and measured it — all 5½ feet of it, he said in an interview Friday with The Washington Post. “It got long enough that some of it was sneaking out of him,”

So how do those critters get into you? Well, first it has to do with not so much WHAT you eat, but HOW it is prepared. the FDA has guidelines to follow(which this man from California clearly did not)

But what happens once the parasite is in you? From The Posts Sarah Kaplan: “The life of a tapeworm unfolds over three stages. First, their larvae, which dwell in some animals’ muscle, are swallowed by another unsuspecting host. With hooks or suckers, they cling to the lining of the gut and get fat off nutrients predigested by the host as they develop. When it comes time to procreate, these hermaphroditic creatures make use of the full suite of male and female reproductive organs packed into their rear ends — they can self-fertilize or mate with another individual. Their eggs are swept out into the world via the host’s bowel movements, then swallowed by another host, when the cycle begins again.”